John Gruber, writing on Daring Fireball - Patrick George Thinks CarPlay’s Days Are Numbered; I Doubt It ↗
I don’t doubt that most carmakers are looking at ways to charge subscriptions. I do doubt, however, that they’re going to follow GM’s lead in abandoning CarPlay support.
I think Gruber is a little overly optimistic about how much most people care about CarPlay, but I think the main reason CarPlay may struggle in the future would be because these companies will cram tracking and ads on any screen they can, rather than strictly subscriptions.
Google, Facebook, and increasingly Amazon make obscene amounts of money just from tracking everything you do and cramming garbage in your face any chance they get. Car companies are already doing this ↗ as much as they can get away with, ↗ and they will continue to push the boundary as far as people let them.
I’m not a CarPlay extremist like many Apple fans. There are a couple of cars I think do a better job at UI / UX than CarPlay, but it’s extremely rare, and I definitely get the arguments for wanting to use your own apps like Apple Maps or your favorite podcast player, but for me I really only prefer it in cars that are absolutely awful at software UI / UX / everything (the vast vast majority of cars).
Gruber argues that customers wanting CarPlay may keep competition strong enough that car markers need to support it to compete. That’s a real possibility and I hope it’s true, but if advertising is the goal, then you are no longer the customer. You’re the product.